Marc Weidenbaum's Blog, page 213
November 14, 2020
Grace Notes: Techno Is Music
Some tweet observations (twitter.com/disquiet) I made over the course of the past week, lightly edited.
▰ Techno is music. Thus declared a German court (news.yahoo.com) at the end of last month. This brings with it beneficial tax/revenue implications for clubs, putting them in the same category as concert venues. (That it was in doubt is beyond me but that’s another story.) It’s interesting this is framed entirely in terms of DJs. I know I’m a wallflower who optimizes for a healthy sleep cycle, but maybe live techno was already exempted, or maybe it’s just a fraction of what clubs are booking. (Well, “were” booking. Covid and all.)
▰ The Bandcamp of late Nigerian drummer Tony Allen (pivotal figure in the work of Fela, and master of his own music as well) uploaded his Film of Life LP. An instant, and much-needed, mood lift. Allen died at the end of April, what feels like a lifetime ago.
▰ Once in a while an article comes out that I get wind of from friends with almost as much frequency as when Roy Orbison died. This New York Times piece by Sabrina Imbler is such a piece (“Could Listening to the Deep Sea Help Save It?). And it is fascinating.
▰ “A billion tiny sensors would hang motionless in an enclosed space, monitored by an extremely precise network of lasers able to measure movements of less than a fraction of a proton’s diameter”: dark matter detection inspired by wind chimes: gizmodo.com.
▰ Sound-adjacent, but worth a notch in the mental notebook that 350,000 doorbells were recalled (nytimes.com) due to a fire hazard. (“Customers do not need to return their devices.”)
▰ New DeLillo and Lethem novels released within a month of each other. The world could be in worse shape.
▰ Is there any way to find out which SoundCloud accounts one follows haven’t uploaded new tracks in over a year or two? I’d like to clean out the accounts I follow to make room to add new ones. Thanks.
▰ Fun fact: half the internet’s traffic is Netflix, and a solid quarter is boilerplate confidentiality statements at the end of emails.
▰ “Please wait for the host to start this meeting.”
November 13, 2020
Become the Interference
Ambalek’s “Quick Shadows Slow Sun” is built, according to a brief liner note, on samples of guitar, sourced from the act that goes by the name imwaiting (soundcloud.com/imwaiting), though there’s more going on here than those samples alone. There is a swirling choir, and swollen piano, and rough interference, and the slow (per the track’s title) sawing of bowed instruments (cello and violin, apparently, which like the piano are virtual). As for the guitar, it isn’t heard as guitar. It’s been stretched (extended, granulated) like so much cotton candy until it merges with the choir, perhaps becomes that gentle interference.
Track originally posted at soundcloud.com/ambalek. More from Amalek at twitter.com/_ambalek, YouTube, and instagram.com/_ambalek. Track located thanks to a repost by Stray Wools (soundcloud.com/everythingdies).
November 12, 2020
Disquiet Junto Project 0463: Making the Gradient
Each Thursday in the Disquiet Junto group, a new compositional challenge is set before the group’s members, who then have just over four days to upload a track in response to the assignment. Membership in the Junto is open: just join and participate. (A SoundCloud account is helpful but not required.) There’s no pressure to do every project. It’s weekly so that you know it’s there, every Thursday through Monday, when you have the time.
Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, November 16, 2020, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, November 12, 2020.
These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):
Disquiet Junto Project 0463: Making the Gradient
The Assignment: Make a piece of music inspired by the concept of a gradient.
Step 1: Think about how a gradient functions, as one thing transitions into another.
Step 2: Make a short piece of music that aims to explore the idea of a gradient in sound.
Seven More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:
Step 1: Include “disquiet0463” (no spaces or quotation marks) in the name of your tracks.
Step 2: If your audio-hosting platform allows for tags, be sure to also include the project tag “disquiet0463” (no spaces or quotation marks). If you’re posting on SoundCloud in particular, this is essential to subsequent location of tracks for the creation of a project playlist.
Step 3: Upload your tracks. It is helpful but not essential that you use SoundCloud to host your tracks.
Step 4: Post your tracks in the following discussion thread at llllllll.co:
https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0463-making-the-gradient/
Step 5: Annotate your tracks with a brief explanation of your approach and process.
Step 6: If posting on social media, please consider using the hashtag #disquietjunto so fellow participants are more likely to locate your communication.
Step 7: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.
Additional Details:
Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, November 16, 2020, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, November 12, 2020.
Length: The length is up to you. Transitions can take time.
Title/Tag: When posting your tracks, please include “disquiet0463” in the title of the tracks, and where applicable (on SoundCloud, for example) as a tag.
Upload: When participating in this project, be sure to include a description of your process in planning, composing, and recording it. This description is an essential element of the communicative process inherent in the Disquiet Junto. Photos, video, and lists of equipment are always appreciated.
Download: It is always best to set your track as downloadable and allowing for attributed remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution, allowing for derivatives).
For context, when posting the track online, please be sure to include this following information:
More on this 463rd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Making the Gradient (The Assignment: Make a piece of music inspired by the concept of a gradient), at:
More on the Disquiet Junto at:
Subscribe to project announcements here:
https://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/
Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:
https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0463-making-the-gradient/
There’s also a Disquiet Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.
November 11, 2020
The Art Gallery in Your Mind’s Ear
Toward the end of this coming January, the Fridman Gallery in Manhattan will be releasing Freedom by artist Yvette Janine Jackson. The record is up for pre-release right now, with two of its tracks streaming at fridmangallery.bandcamp.com. One cut, available as an excerpt, “Invisible People,” is all hellfire and brimstone, part excoriating exorcism, part calculated recitation of Jonathan Edwards sermonizing (heard here in usefully creepy text-to-speech), all playing out in an atmosphere of dissolute, slow-motion chamber music. Especially engaging is the album’s opening track, “Destination Freedom,” also an excerpt (each around three minutes in length), which is even more atmospheric: piano keys with near-oceanic depth, ghostly string sections, horns buried in the fog. The album is due out January 22, 2021.
More from Jackson at yvettejackson.com.
November 10, 2020
Caminauta in the Dunes
Video of Caminauta, shot not far from the Atlantic Ocean, performing electronic music on an Ableton Push, improvising ambient sounds live amid the dunes. Rough percussive textures mix with pulsing, soft notes for a minimalist fantasia, the pace (just under 90 BPM) slow enough to relax to, but allowing for a welcome vibrancy. (I previously mentioned Caminauta here in the context of a duet with cellist Federico Motta back in early July of this year.)
Video originally posted at youtube.com. More from Caminauta at caminauta.bandcamp.com. This is the latest video I’ve added to my ongoing YouTube playlist of fine live performance of ambient music.
November 9, 2020
Music for Reading (and Writing)
Dark by Juha-Matti Rautiainen Soundscapes
If the clattering noises and blood-in-the-ear drones, not to mention the backwards monster voices and plagues-sweep-the-land synth washes, make this intensely quiet music an altogether uncomfortable listen, it’s all on purpose. Finland-based musician Juha-Matti Rautiainen set out, when recording the four tracks that comprise Dark, “to create as scary soundscapes as possible.” He recommends the music as accompaniment when reading the work of “psychological horror” novelist Marko Hautala. The album grew out of a conversation the two of them had, leading Rautiainen to compose music to which Hautala might write, and to which his readers, in turn, might read.
Album originally posted the night before Halloween at juhamattirautiainen.bandcamp.com. More from Rautiainen at juhamattirautiainen.com, and check out Hautala’s writing at markohautala.fi.
November 8, 2020
Current Listens: Bisengalieva, Vogelsinger, half light
A weekly(ish) answer to the question “What have you been listening to lately?” It’s lightly annotated because I don’t like re-posting material without providing some context. I hope to write more about some of these in the future, but didn’t want to delay sharing them.
▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰
NEW: Recent(ish) arrivals and pre-releases
▰ Live violin from the Kazakh-British composer Galya Bisengalieva, soaring like gulls above an accompaniment of strings, voices, and muted percussion.
▰ Hélène Vogelsinger performs (in full video) a 10-minute live modular piece in an abandoned castle in her native France.
▰ The Dallas/Nashville duo called half light released Permafrost, a beautiful box of musical curios. Long tones, cello and violin lines stretched to the horizon, gather beneath the sonic equivalent of textured cloth on one track (“Hiraeth”), while infrastructural moans meet panning drones on another (“Isolation”). A deep, rich recording.
▰ In the interest of conversation, let me know what you’re listening to in the comments below. Just please don’t promote your own work (or that of your label/client). This isn’t the right venue. (Just use email.)
Current Listens: Bisengalieva, Vogelsinger, elddir
A weekly(ish) answer to the question “What have you been listening to lately?” It’s lightly annotated because I don’t like re-posting material without providing some context. I hope to write more about some of these in the future, but didn’t want to delay sharing them.
▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰
NEW: Recent(ish) arrivals and pre-releases
▰ Live violin from the Kazakh-British composer Galya Bisengalieva, soaring like gulls above an accompaniment of strings, voices, and muted percussion.
▰ Hélène Vogelsinger performs (in full video) a 10-minute live modular piece in an abandoned castle in her native France.
▰ The Dallas, Texas-based musician elddir’s Permafrost is a beautiful box of musical curios. Long tones, cello and violin lines stretched to the horizon, gather beneath the sonic equivalent of textured cloth on one track (“Hiraeth”), while infrastructural moans meet panning drones on another (“Isolation”). A deep, rich recording.
▰ In the interest of conversation, let me know what you’re listening to in the comments below. Just please don’t promote your own work (or that of your label/client). This isn’t the right venue. (Just use email.)
“Night (There and Back)”
Sunday night guitar loops. Unlike other recent guitar loop experiments I’ve tried out, this one has a live component. After the first minute or so (which I’d already layered in advance of hitting record), new material is added and then later deleted. This setup consists of electric guitar, reverb pedal, overdrive, and looper, plus an eBow on occasion for those extended notes. After recording (amp to phone, live in the room), I used Adobe Audition to implement a fade in and a fade out, and for a little additional reverb.
Track originally posted at soundcloud.com/disquiet.
Grace Notes: Jawn, Catharsis, Hopescrolling
Some tweet observations (twitter.com/disquiet) I made over the course of the past week, lightly edited. I usually post this roundup on Saturdays, but yesterday was an unusual day.
I do this manually each week, just collating the tweets I made that I want to keep track of. For the most part, this means ones I initiated, not ones in which I directly responded to someone. Long ago, there was an automated way to collect a week’s tweets as a blog post, but that script stopped working at some point. I do have something set up that automatically collects all my tweets as a private Google document. That’s a useful tool to search through, though Twitter’s own advanced search is there when I wonder, say, how many times have I mentioned Ginger Baker’s album Horses and Trees? Or: how often have I mentioned listening to Éliane Radigue on the bus?
▰ Working on liner notes means having the same record on repeat for a long time in different contexts. I only write full-fledged liner notes about records I can do that with.
▰ Thank you, Small Professor, for having introduced me to the word “jawn” so I was prepared for this fine day. (And Carl Ritger for familiarizing me with it, too.)
▰ hopescrolling
▰ “You are using the computer audio.” A lot of computer interface language still, indeed, sounds like Kraftwerk lyrics.
▰ [cathartic scream]
▰ The longer this year gets, the more time we’re giving 2021 to up its game.
▰ After a buncha false starts, it’ll be Brian Eno’s Thursday Afternoon on repeat for the foreseeable future.
▰ Great (and, needless to say, well-timed for our anxious moment) interview with Brian Eno by Lindsay Zoladz about his music for/from films, with nods to Fellini and Lynch (Dune details!), and insight into ambient as constructed atmosphere: nytimes.com.
▰ Among the many things* I love about where I live, while it’s incredibly clear and beautiful out, the marine layer can still clog up the bay (a 15-minute walk away), meaning the fog horns (incongruously to a visitor) blow on (*including general local political/social comfort zone).
▰ Would love to know if the servers for Calm, InsightTimer, Headspace, and related apps are experiencing overload today.
▰ Hopeful for a near future in which the word “ignominious” is employed with great frequency.
▰ Catharsis go-to track:
▰ Catharsis go-to track:
▰ Catharsis go-to track:
▰ 조용한 / It’s always a good day to change your Twitter location to a country where you can’t read the language. I’m riding out the election with my “trends” all in Korean (with the exception of whatever single promoted tweet shows at the top of the list). Bonus points if it’s an alphabet you find aesthetically pleasing.
▰ I don’t need another Girl with the Dragon Tattoo movie. I just need another Karen O / Trent Reznor / Atticus Ross cover of a Led Zeppelin song.
▰ “That music always round me, unceasing, unbeginning, yet long untaught I did not hear, / But now the chorus I hear and am elated” –Walt Whitman
